By Joanne Chiu

Kuaishou Technology plans to stop taking orders from institutional investors for its roughly $5 billion initial public offering earlier than planned, after meeting strong demand, people familiar with the matter said.

The Chinese video-app company will stop taking institutional orders by Wednesday's close, two days earlier than first planned, the people said.

The company has received overwhelming demand from institutional investors in the U.S., Europe and Asia, one of the people said. No price guidance is available for investors yet.

With a deal size of between $4.95 billion and $5.4 billion, the Hong Kong IPO is set to be the world's largest since Saudi Arabian Oil Co.'s debut in late 2019, Dealogic figures show. Underwriters have the option to increase the deal's final size by 15%.

Kuaishou is partly owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd. and competes with ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese company behind TikTok and its sister app Douyin.

A Kuaishou representative declined to comment.

The company is separately taking orders until noon Friday Hong Kong time for the smaller part of the deal that is reserved for individual investors. The deal is still set to price Friday, one of the people said.

Kuaishou is selling about 365 million new shares at an indicative range of 105 to 115 Hong Kong dollars (US$13.50-US$14.80), according to a term sheet seen by The Wall Street Journal. Its stock will start trading on Feb. 5.

Write to Joanne Chiu at joanne.chiu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-25-21 2359ET